A memorial on Chilco Street in Menlo Park, Calif., late Friday afternoon Oct. 25, 2013, marks the spot where Kamal Singh, 45, and Balbir Singh, 50, both of Menlo Park were killed yesterday evening after being struck by a vehicle. The driver was subsequently arrested for two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and two counts of felony DUI. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
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Karl Mondon
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Menlo Park police Chief Robert Jonsen and Cmdr. Dave Bertini, center, meet with relatives of Balbir and Kamal Singh gather at the coupleís residence on Friday, Oct. 25, 2013. The couple was struck from behind and killed by an allegedly intoxicated driver while walking their dog on Chilco Street in Menlo Park on Thursday night.

MENLO PARK -- More than a dozen relatives and friends of a man and woman killed Thursday night while walking their dog gathered at the accident scene on Chilco Street Friday afternoon to place a memorial by the side of the road.

The couple -- identified Friday by the San Mateo County Coroner's office as Kamal Singh, 45, and Balbir Singh, 50, both of Menlo Park -- were walking eastbound on Chilco, possibly in the bike lane, when a car traveling the same direction plowed into them, Menlo Park police Cmdr. Dave Bertini said.

Police were called to the scene west of Constitution Drive just before 7 p.m. Thursday. Officers arrived to find the couple dead in the street and their dog injured, Bertini said.

After striking the couple, the car jumped the landscaped center divide, clipped a car traveling the other direction and came to rest against a tree.

Relatives of the couple gathered Friday morning at the scene of the accident and told ABC7 TV that the couple had three children, ages 15, 16 and 18 years old. .

"I told them your mother and father are not here, but I'm here for you guys," the victim's brother, Amirt Singh, told the station, referring to his conversation with the couple's children. "I'll be your father." The children told the station that their parents were on a nightly walk with the family dog.

"I came home from work around 11ish and they still weren't back so we started to worry," said one of the the couple's daughter's, Komal Singh.

The children did not learn about what happened to their parents until hours after it happened, when police showed up at their home.

Marjorie Reitzell, the driver of the car that hit the couple, was still in her vehicle when police arrived on the scene Thursday night, Bertini said. The 54-year-old Redwood City resident appeared to be intoxicated and complained of minor injuries, he said.

There were four occupants in the vehicle that was hit but none of them were injured, Bertini said. Their car suffered minor damage.

Bertini said Reitzell was taken to Stanford Hospital, where officers placed her under arrest on suspicion of two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and two counts of felony DUI.

"She's never going to be forgiven, she's never going to be forgiven," the victims' daughter Rema Singh said of the suspect. "We lost our parents because of her."

Her sister, Komal, called their parents "one of a kind."

"They were always helpful," she said told ABC7. "They never said no to anybody. They were always funny, always smiling, so they obviously don't deserve this. They don't need to be gone."

Bertini said the couple likely died instantly.

The Peninsula Humane Society took the dog to a vet for treatment, Bertini said.

The section of Chilco where the couple died curves more than 90 degrees and does not have a sidewalk. Bertini said the street, which runs through a light industrial and commercial area, and to his knowledge is not particularly dangerous.